Missing turn with 5 cards on purpose

I have seen several times a maneuver that in my mind is cheating. I wont point out individuals....because the system actually allows it. however If a player get the advantage of going first in a five or six man game, then I also get the disadvantage of turning in first if all players wait for 5 cards. this means the first player should get 4 extra armies for the turn in. however if he simply lets the system make him miss his turn, then his turn in then becomes 12 or 15. I think there needs to be some sort of penalty for this action. thoughts??

There was a thread about this before, but I cannot find it any more. I don't think missing your turn on purpose when you have five cards is necessarily cheating, but I agree it's a really low move to make. The penalty you get here is that your attendance score gets lowered, but somebody who otherwise takes their turns normally would have no problem bringing that back up. One penalty people have suggested is to just take away the three cards without them getting troops for it, and we increase the troops count you get for cards as normally, that would solve the problem. But then, if you miss a turn for genuine reasons, that's still a bit harsh, so I am not sure if I like that solution either. I am open for suggestions. Btw, I'll change this thread title, since "CHEATING???" is not really helpful for anybody trying to find this thread in the future, or to see what we're talking about.

Taking away 3 cards would often leave the player weak and that player would likely become a target for cards later on causing even more harm to the game than the problem it was ment to fix.

But what if it is a legitimate miss? What if the 2nd person does it too? What if everyone does it? Why not lock the turn in number to that person. So if I have 5 cards and it is my turn, I will get whatever the number is (4 or say 8 if two others have already cashed). If I miss my turn, even if everyone else cashes after me, I still get that number when I do cash. Also, everyone gets the correct number. So if I was 4, and player 2 is after me with 4 cards and cashes, they will get 6. When I come back I will have to still turn my cards in, but my turn in is still 4.

[quote=dough_boy]Why not lock the turn in number to that person. So if I have 5 cards and it is my turn, I will get whatever the number is (4 or say 8 if two others have already cashed). If I miss my turn, even if everyone else cashes after me, I still get that number when I do cash. Also, everyone gets the correct number. So if I was 4, and player 2 is after me with 4 cards and cashes, they will get 6. When I come back I will have to still turn my cards in, but my turn in is still 4.[/quote] I agree this is the fairest solution, but for full transparency reasons: I'd rather like to avoid such a complex[sup]1[/sup] technical solution. Suddenly we need to keep track of how many troops people would've gotten in the past, which complicates our logic quite a lot. It's fine if we need to do that for one thing, but if we start building complex solutions like these for each possible way somebody can manipulate the game, it'll become a bit of a mess real quick. So if there's a simpler solution, I'd much rather pursue that instead. I think that also avoids that we have lots of systems like these later that over time become hard to understand for players as well. [sup]1[/sup] This isn't complex as in "I can't build it" or "it will take a lot of time", it's just an order of magnitude more complex of what we have now, which hurts the maintainability of the code. Simpler = better.

I think it's worth assessing if this is really a problem before any solutions start being put in place. This has surely happened before in a game I've played, but I have never noticed it being a problem, nor people doing it regularly (probably because it's a poor strategic move except in some very specific situations). The solutions offered all create more problems than the issue itself, in my opinion.

I agree. I think it is just part of the game. It would be nice to know how many people do this, and how often, but I wouldn't worry about it. If I am first and I know if I got 5 cards I would cash first, I might just not card one round. I wouldn't purposefully miss a turn.

I don't think it is such a big problem as to find a special solution. As said above, it it really a poor strategy that would have very limited situations where it even makes sense. You are going to lose troops by missing your turn just to get a few extra the next time around and hoping everyone plays the way you need them to in between is more of a rookie move that rarely pans out anyway. I think the reason you don't see it more is because the more experienced players know the value of trading later and they find a better, less costly way to maneuver themselves into that position by just placing troops one or two rounds off the bat and not attacking /conquering a territory thus skipping a card but not losing troops or missing a turn to do it.

i only used the word "cheating" so it would get attention what about losing a card?? at random??

as far as poor strategy....you lose 3 armies for the missed turn. the new turn in would be 12 or 15 dependent on number of players.....you got the advantage of going first in the beginning of the game AND then you get an extra 8 to 12 men on the turn in.....I would not call that bad strategy just saying

[quote]I would not call that bad strategy[/quote] Compared to placing your armies but not attacking on an earlier turn thus skipping getting the card only and putting yourself in the exact same better turn-in position you described instead of losing those three armies, or any other possible armies for holding more than 12 territories or holding a continent or special bonus area etc. it is not the better strategy. That is what I was pointing out. A new player might think that it is a good strategy to miss the turn for a higher trade in but a more experienced player knows how to achieve the same goal without missing a turn and can do so without sacrificing the extra armies and being in better control of their own situation as well because they won't have as much of a gap between missed turns to react if the situation goes in an unexpected direction.

The solution can be, for example, I have 5 cards and I intentionally want to miss a move, the developers know better how to enter the code(because it is very important that there is no effect on other players, in terms of attendance), then each subsequent player automatically completes the move without the ability to click, which means that on the move is again a player with 5 cards , nothing happened, the players after him have no attendance less because it went automatically, what happens next is clear, if he misses a move he goes out of the game, if in some case he clicks on the move and lets his time expire, then the admin solves the matter,and I think an appropriate punishment should be found for such a thing.Theoretically it sounds quite reasonable, and whether such a thing is possible in practice I really don't know, it's a matter of the programmer. we must also include the possibility that it may happen to someone without malice quite by accident.I haven't seen it once before really, and I can agree with the above speeches that you shouldn't panic about it. Kwikool, did that happen to you in the game?

I feel like even if the punishment of taking 3 cards is harsh it is still fair. Because the chances of someone unintentionally missing a turn and not having cards is quite low in my opinion. This means the majority of people who are missing turns with cards are "cheating". And there are ways to get around not having to trade in your cards first, even if you are the first player, such as not attacking as much. This means that if you are missing turns with cards you should be penalised because it's not fair on others and there are honest ways of avoiding the problem of low turn ins. After all the low turn in at first is part of the game, so strategy is needed to beat that part of the game.

Suggested Punishment- Missing a turn with 5 cards or starting a turn and not turning in a set when having 5 cards = automatically reduces your cards to 0. Let me know if anyone would on purpose miss a turn with 5 cards if that was the punishment. I would doubt it.

[quote]Let me know if anyone would on purpose miss a turn with 5 cards if that was the punishment.[/quote] No, nobody would, but we are also punishing people who have a legitimate reason to miss a turn. Their internet may be gone, some real life circumstances may get in the way, etc. I am not going along with punishing those people because a small group of players thinks they can play the system by missing turns on purpose.